Moonlight 2.0 beta adds Silverlight 3.0 features

The Moonlight project has reached the beta stage of Moonlight 2.0, its open source web application framework compatible with Microsoft's Silverlight.

Available as source code or as a plug-in for FireFox on Linux and Unix systems, beta 1 of Moonlight 2.0 supersedes the preview version released in May, and is now feature complete and ready to be tested against Silverlight 2.0 sites, according to the developers.

However, in a blog posting, lead developer Miguel de Icaza said that the API implemented in Moonlight 2.0 is a superset of that in Silverlight 2.0 and contains some elements from Silverlight 3.0, such as the media pipeline that enables third-party codecs to be supported.

"Although Microsoft has already released Silverlight 3.0 with new functionality and APIs, it will take some time to be fully adopted, so while we might be behind Microsoft's offering, we still think that this will allow users to access most Silverlight content out there today," he said.

While the release is feature complete, testers are warned that a security audit of the code has yet to be performed and further bugs are likely to be identified before the project reaches release status.